The House With No Rooms

by Lesley Thomson

  She would have suggested that Jack do this job, but Tina Banks had specifically requested Stella and, besides, she suspected that Jack didn’t much like Tina. Not that he would let it affect the quality of his work. She keyed in the entry code and, commanding Stanley to jump over the pit at the foot of the door – his agility training paying off – she heaved the cart in after him.

  Stella was familiar with Tina Banks’s corner apartment on the fourth of five floors in Thamesbank Heights (offering stunning vistas of the River Thames and beyond), because months ago it had belonged to her. Banks had bought it from Stella. Stanley had peed on the ‘headstone’ just as he had when he lived there. Tina Banks had taken a liking to him and insisted that Stella bring him when she cleaned the flat. He could ‘be himself and visit his old haunts’. Stella hadn’t asked what Tina thought Stanley ‘being himself’ meant. She found bringing him an unsatisfactory arrangement because, despite rigorous training, Stanley was apt to snaffle dusters, chew dustpan brushes and growl at the vacuum cleaner. But Stella tried to comply with clients’ requests.

  She trundled the cart across the sweep of marble to a row of lifts clad in stainless steel that reflected her approach as a series of warped images like a Hall of Mirrors.

  When she had shown her father the brochure for Thamesbank Heights – Stella had purchased her flat off plan – Terry Darnell had commented that the entrance was better suited to an international bank than a place where real people lived. Waiting for a lift, Stella contemplated the sleek décor with the objectivity of absence and saw his point. Few ‘real people’ lived in Thamesbank Heights. Years after the consortium had gone bust, fewer than half of the apartments were occupied. The emptiness had suited Stella, who didn’t want neighbours.

  As she got into the lift she remembered that the phone had tweeted when she was in the car park.

  It was her mother. Or rather it was a notification from Instagram telling her that Suzie Darnell had added to her ‘Down Under’ album. Suzie was visiting Stella’s older brother, who lived in Sydney. Technically adept, Suzie had embraced Instagram. In the two weeks she had been away Stella had received a stream of images, mostly of her mum – in some disguise or other, she could never be sure if it was her mum – taken against an iconic Sydney backdrop. As the lift ascended, she regarded the latest photograph. Her mum was silhouetted against the white Opera House, arms in the air in line with one of the sails. Stella thought she looked in pain. From the angle, Stella could see it was another ‘selfie’. Her mum had acquired a telescopic selfie stick at Heathrow airport. Dale wasn’t in the shot, although Stella knew he had taken time off from his restaurant to accompany Suzie on what she called her ‘jaunts’ around the city. Examining the picture, she saw another shadow in the foreground. So Dale was there. Typical of her mum to take a selfie, but leave out the other person.

  The photograph was tinted sepia with high contrast. But for the tip of the sails on the building, everything – including Suzie – was rendered soft focus. The effect was to propel her mum into the past. This, coupled with the geographical distance from London, made Stella uneasy. Since her dad’s death she dreaded anything happening to her mum.

  Yesterday’s photo, taken in the botanic gardens overlooking Sydney, had been given the Warhol treatment: Suzie Darnell, in Marilyn Monroe technicolour, beneath a tree bright with orange flowers. It was too far away for a selfie stick so Dale must have taken it.

  The first time her mum had gone to Australia, Stella had grumbled that Suzie only sent a couple of postcards about feeding plants. As the lift doors opened and she stepped out on to the fourth floor of the apartment block, Stella pondered that postcards were preferable. The photographs depicted a woman who was a stranger to her.

  Stanley padded beside her along a carpeted corridor with doors recessed either side giving the impression from a distance that there was no break in the walls. Outside her old flat, Stella scratched keys into two mortice locks, the jangling disproportionately loud in the hermetically sealed space. For security, Terry had advised his daughter fit an extra mortice and a London bar. A velvet ‘sausage’ draught excluder hampered her opening the door. Stella wouldn’t have tolerated it; her staff manual advised that no action must require another action to be completed. The draught excluder was an extraneous precaution because with triple glazing and snugly fitting doors, there were no draughts.

  She was in another long corridor with more doors. Although she didn’t miss the flat, Stella liked coming back to it. She gave a few short sniffs. Nose in the air, Stanley did the same. When she had lived here, she had been greeted by reviving wafts of plug-in lavender air fresheners; now she smelled Tina’s perfume.

  Stella had a preternatural sense of smell that was on a par with her dog’s. She could identify a scent or an odour and recall the times she had smelled it. Tina’s scent was Yves Saint Laurent’s unisex Eau Libre, popular in the 1970s when Stella’s father had bought it for her mum, presuming erroneously that it was her favourite. Suzie often declared that this mistake had hammered a further nail into the coffin of their marriage.

  Eau Libre had been discontinued, so Tina sourced it at great expense from eBay, calling it her ‘one extravagance’. Although Tina was at her office when Stella cleaned the flat, her scent lingered in the conditioned air.

  Stella observed that it was stronger today, but, concentrating on Stanley avoiding the wheels of the cart and plotting how to distract him from ‘helping’, she hardly registered this. She was also distracted by another issue. Today they would hear if Clean Slate had won the contract to clean buildings in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. It was her company’s biggest-ever bid and would take it to another level.

  Absently Stella led Stanley to heel along to the front room. The room vibrated with music. Stella was prey to a nightmare in which she was scrubbing at a stain that, no matter what she did or what solutions she applied, grew until the room was one big stain. All around a sea of beige and white was blotched with stains. She blinked. The carpet was clean. But gone were the dining table and the chairs.

  The music was ‘Rebel Rebel’ by David Bowie. Stella, who had never been a rebel, knew the track because it was Jackie’s favourite.

  Slowly Stella absorbed a fact more dreadful than battling with an ever-spreading stain. Feet bare, hair flying, Tina Banks was dancing around the room clutching a long-handled squeegee mop. Stella didn’t dance, but if she did, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her doing it. She made to leave before Tina noticed her but saw with dizzying horror that it was too late. On his hind legs like a circus dog, Stanley was prancing about with Tina, keeping pace with her steps. Just when Stella couldn’t imagine it could get worse, Tina began to sing in a raucous voice. Eyes shut, she sashayed around the room, Stanley beside her.

  Stella gesticulated at him, miming silent commands, but his eyes were on Tina. If Tina Banks realized that Stella was watching her dance she would never speak to her again. In a flash Stella – not given to reflection – saw that she minded less that she would lose a client than that she would lose a friend.

  Tina opened her eyes and let out a whoop. She grabbed Stanley’s outstretched paws and danced with him. Tina Banks was a short woman – barely over five feet – and the dog, stretching up on his hind legs, reached above her knees. Her back to Stella, she called out, ‘Hey, Stell, come and dance!’

  Stella scrambled behind her for the door. ‘I need to clean,’ she objected lamely.

  ‘I’m learning to foxtrot. I need your help.’ Tina waved her smart phone at a Bluetooth speaker on the window sill and the music stopped. Stanley stopped too. He sat, pert and at the ready for a new command from Tina. Stella had turned down the opportunity to attend her trainer’s dancing classes for dogs. Hazily she suspected now that, as Jackie had suggested, Stanley might have liked them.

  ‘I promised Vaughan I’d be step perfect!’ Tina was doing stretches, arms to the ceiling, dipping her head to the floor. ‘Now you’re here, it will be better
.’

  Stella couldn’t see why it would be better. She stalled for time. ‘Who’s Vaughan?’

  ‘My dancing teacher. He’s drop-dead gorgeous!’

  ‘You’re learning to dance?’ Stella was incredulous. Tina worked as hard as she did; Stella had no time – or inclination – to dance.

  ‘No choice and nor have you. We’re with the big players now, Stell. It’s not about breaking up huddles in washrooms or sealing a deal on the golf course, we’ve got to beat these guys on the dance floor. Knock ’em dead in all senses!’

  Stella restored and maintained order, stain by stain. She avoided fiction because it wasn’t about real life; she faced reality head on. After leaving school she consigned pop music – she and her friend Liz had liked Duran Duran – to her teenaged years. She didn’t dance because it served no practical purpose. And like today meant that the furniture wasn’t where it belonged. She couldn’t see how dancing would help her business and nor did she want to knock anyone dead.

  ‘I’m going to a ball next week. There’ll be judges, all manner of wigged-up high and mightys. I have to show them who’s in charge. I must be the best, but I won’t be with two right feet!’

  Tina was best at all she did. The most sought-after criminal lawyer in London, she already had power and influence. Jackie said it was in Tina’s nature to be always striving. Stella was unsure that an ability to foxtrot would help.

  ‘Is it the right music?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Shouldn’t it be Frank Sinatra or...?’ She tailed off.

  ‘I can’t stand that romantic blather. Bowie is in four-four time, he works a dream.’

  Stella’s chapter on client relations in the staff manual stipulated that unless unreasonable, unsafe or illegal, operatives should agree to go outside the cleaning remit if requested by the client. Stella had been assuming mundane tasks like bringing her dog to sessions or doing extra cleaning. Jack had once had to read a bedtime story to a geranium and Stella’s mother Suzie had gone through a phase of insisting that Stella and Jack rake through her rubbish bin searching for items lost years ago that couldn’t be there. No client had asked an operative to foxtrot. Stella hadn’t defined unreasonable. Besides, a lawyer, Tina would drive a truck through any argument. Ruefully Stella admitted that she had broken her key rule, Never cross the line between client and friend. Foxtrotting was her penalty.

  Last year, Jackie had gone to the ball at the British Cleaning Council’s annual conference, dragging along a reluctant Graham, her husband. Stella had refused to go. She hated making small talk – even about cleaning – but the dancing had clinched it. Would she lose the contract with Kew Gardens because she refused to dance?

  Tina returned from the kitchen with the brush with extra tough bristles. Stella felt a spark of relief. Tina had been joking, Stella could get on with cleaning.

  ‘Take your boots off – we have to be light on our feet.’ She handed the brush to Stella. ‘Meet your partner – Basil Brush, if you need a name – rest one hand on his “shoulder” and imagine he has you clasped around the waist.’

  As if going to the scaffold, Stella took off her boots and placed them together by the door, as a promise of escape. She took the brush and restrained herself from sweeping up crumbs and fluff from the carpet. Clasping ‘Basil’ she was thankful that Jackie and Beverly couldn’t see her. Or Jack. Except that were Jack here, Stella suspected that he’d be eager to join in.

  Tina pressed a button on her phone and the guitar riff began again. ‘Do what I do,’ Tina shouted over the music.

  Perhaps Stella’s precise approach, her commitment to systems and her ‘stain by stain’ methodology had honed her motor skills. Perhaps it was her ability to manoeuvre equipment in tight spaces. Whatever the reason, within two plays of the track she had mastered the box step. She could integrate left and right turns and, with Basil held close, promenaded sideways from the kitchen to the end wall and back. The form and boundary that the dance demanded suited her. It didn’t involve – positively discouraged – the extraneous dips and twirls that horrified her about modern dancing. Predictable, reliant on corners and straight lines, if Stella had to dance, then the foxtrot was right for her. Imitating Stella, Tina’s steps improved. With David Bowie on repeat, the two women danced on, unaware of the small poodle cavorting at their heels in hectic counterpoint to the regular drumbeat.

  Abruptly Tina Banks silenced the music and flopped on to the sofa, panting for breath. Stella could have done another few rounds. Standing in the middle of the carpet, grasping the brush like a shepherd’s crook, she was faintly surprised to see Tina so pale and shattered. Tina worked out at a gym every morning, she was a Pilates and hot yoga fanatic and the foxtrot wasn’t physically demanding. Stanley sat at Tina’s feet, ears cocked, eyes pinned on her.

  ‘You are a natural!’ Tina swiped at perspiration glistening on her forehead with her sleeve. She rested her head on a cushion behind her and shut her eyes. ‘Vaughan would love you!’ she panted. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. I need to get started.’ Stella returned the brush and mop to the kitchen and fetched the cleaning cart from the hall. She laced her boots back on.

  It wasn’t unusual to have to remind a client why she was there. But Tina wasn’t just a client. Stella had started by meeting her for coffee and recently they had graduated to curries at a place on King Street. Tina was exacting, a reason she had given for requesting that Stella did the work. The women were well suited.

  ‘I ought to head off.’ Tina struggled out of the sofa, lost balance and fell back; annoyance clouded her face. She didn’t like to be seen to fail at anything and so, perhaps to counteract this, did twist stretches as she left the room.

  When Stella had told Jackie that she would be cleaning Tina’s flat, Jackie had warned Stella that returning to her old home might feel strange. ‘What if you hate the changes she’s made?’

  When she had come to do the estimate, Tina’s white sofa – still in its protective plastic – was identical to her own and was positioned under the picture window overlooking the river as hers had been. The walls were still brilliant white. Tina had asked that Stella include her glass-topped dining table and matching coffee table in the sale. When she had lived there Stella had left the walls bare because art attracted dirt and created clutter. After Tina had gone to work, Stella cleaned in earnest; she took down two pictures from the wall by the kitchen door, another change. One was of a tree with orange flowers. Stella paused. It looked like the one in her mum’s photo. Stella noticed the legend: ‘Study of the West Australian Flame Tree or Fire Tree, Marianne North, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’. Kew Gardens was on her mind; Jack would definitely call this a sign.

  On her first visit, Tina had been voluble as she explained that North’s paintings were frowned on by botanists because the tree was depicted in context which confused identification. Surprised that Tina was aerated by a tree, Stella had got the point about context confusing an issue. She hadn’t questioned Tina further. Her staff manual was strict about not asking the client personal questions.

  Over the months, Stella saw that, as she so often was, Jackie had been right: cleaning the flat did make her feel strange. Not because she minded that someone else was living there: Stella was of a logical bent; she believed that if she minded then she shouldn’t have moved. But when she was vacuuming corners and buffing windows she was back to when she had done these tasks for herself as if the intervening months hadn’t happened. While Jack Harmon would have relished the sensation of time reversing, Stella found it unsettling.

  The dancing had delayed her. Stella texted Jackie that she couldn’t make their meeting about finding new premises. She didn’t mention the foxtrotting. She put back the furniture. After polishing the window she placed a framed photograph precisely where it had been on the sill. This was an action she repeated every week, but today, ruffled by dancing and anxious about Kew Gardens, Stella looked at it.

  It was a black-and-white photograph of a
man grinning at the camera. He was crouched, one hand resting on a football between his knees, his thick-set figure outlined against a white sky. Stella had assumed he was a film star from the 1950s.

  ‘My dad is the star of his own life!’ Tina had corrected her. ‘Give the old man a dusting-down, it’ll do him good.’ She had dropped her businesslike guard, fingers trailing over the frame and murmured, ‘My dad was my hero.’

  At one of their meetings in the café on Hammersmith Broadway Stella and Tina had discovered that they had the same birthday: 12 August 1966. Tina instantly dubbed them twins and set about proving how much they had in common. They both ran successful businesses, hadn’t yet found Mr Right – Tina said he didn’t exist; Stella hadn’t thought about it one way or the other – and they were ‘Daddy’s girls’. Stella hadn’t said this to Tina. She had told her that when she was seven she had wanted to be a detective like Terry.

  Now, scrutinizing the picture of the young man she could see why Tina had drawn a parallel. Terry had had the same good looks as Cliff Banks. Both men had loved dancing and had met their wives at the Hammersmith Palais. A key difference between them was that Cliff Banks was alive and Chief Superintendent Terry Darnell had died of a heart attack in January 2011.

  Tina was sure that, as a police officer and a taxi driver, their paths must have crossed. But if she ever asked her dad, he hadn’t confirmed this. Stella was certain that Terry had never taken a taxi in his life.

  In their family, Terry had the camera. Unlike her mum, he hadn’t been one for timed pictures (latter-day selfies). She had no portrait of him. Mostly the photos featuring Terry were team shots of him graduating from police training courses at Hendon College, and there was a picture in the West London Observer of Terry as a constable taking part in a fingertip search of Wormwood Scrubs common after the Braybrook Street Shooting. Stella wouldn’t have thought of putting these on show in her front room.